What's important in life...

Do you ever come to a point in your day where you stop and take a moment to ponder what's really important? Perhaps the death of a close friend or family member has made you think about life and the way we prioritize our time, our energy. Maybe it was seeing a news clip on the starving kids in Sudan. Perhaps a stirring lecture or sermon tickled your brain. Maybe you are just one of those deep-thinkers who is always trying to keep things in the big perspective. What do you do when you come to these realizations? What should we do? Obviously our priorities get changed; the things we want to spend time doing are hopefully of more eternal value. But does it last? Do we continue in this state of mind? How many days, weeks, or years does it take until your thoughts and convictions have slipped back into old habits? Why is it that we can flip a switch and not give a care in the world. I do my best to look at situations according to the big picture: hat is really important, what will be remembered for years, what could impact others' lives. It can get difficult and exhausting to try to always be making choices using the "what's important in life" ideology, but worth it in the end. I don't have a good answer as to what we should do with these "ah hah" moments. How should we incorporate our newfound discernment with every day decisions? When does it become more of a burden and stress, and less of an advantage, to be thinking in this way all the time? I'm about at the point right now where I have all these thoughts in my head but I don't know what I've said and where things should go. I feel like this is an essay I wrote for a class, where I totally make up half of the content and just submitted it in hopes that the professor wouldn't not read past the second paragraph. Well, as it turns out, this is going to be the end of this stream of consciousness. For more confusing words from your host, tune in next time to NickBurwell.com.